A retrospective view of Spanish agriculture and the range of
species cultivated during the last 500 years would clearly show
the considerable change that has taken place regarding the nature
of crops. These changes are evident not only through the gradual
incorporation of American flora into the Iberian and island
agricultural landscape (potato, maize, sunflower, beans, tomato,
American cotton plants, avocados. custard apple, tobacco. etc.),
but also through the loss of quite a few cultivated species
during the centuries prior to Columbus's voyage. In fact, many
species that have been forgotten in agriculture are now being
discovered thanks to documentation from the Hispano-Roman period,
which can be studied, for example, through Columela (first
century); the Hispano-Visigothic period, to which Isidore of
Seville refers (seventh century); or better still from the very
abundant information passed down by the Andalusian agronomists of
the Hispano-Arabic period - Arib Ibn Said (tenth century), Ibn
Abi Yawad (tenth and eleventh centuries), Ibn Hayyay (eleventh
century), Ibn Bassal (eleventh century). Al Tignari (?), Ibn
al-Awamm (twelfth century) and Ibn Luyun (fourteenth century),
among others.

We shall take as a reference southern Spanish agriculture of
the fifteenth century. This is a subject for which valuable
information is available thanks to the Hispano-Arabic authors of
past centuries. It was primarily by way of Andalusia that
exchanges of samples and seeds with America were to be promoted
and carried out during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
through the centralization of trade, operated by the Casa de
Indias in Seville.

Furthermore. it was the land of western Andalusia which the
Spanish Crown initially had available for producing the wheat
which was to teed the colonies of the New West Indies and make up
for the cereal shortages recorded from the earliest times on
American soil.

The conquest of western Andalusia by the Christian kings
lasted from 150 to 200 years, beginning in the thirteenth
century. Consequently, agriculture was to a large extent
transformed on the basis of the Castilian model (cereal and
livestock). However, in eastern Andalusia the Hispano-Muslims of
the Nazari Kingdom had just been vanquished and not only their
agricultural landscape and customs but also their own population
had remained in the region for some time. Hieronymus Münzer, a
traveller from Nuremberg who visited the Iberian peninsula
between 1494 and 1495, described the Kingdom of Granada recently
conquered by Christian armies and referred in admiring and
respectful terms to Nazari agriculture, wich was organized into
gardens and irrigated, drawing attention to the excellence of
their cultivation techniques, the development of irrigation
methods and the wide biodiversity of cultivated species and
varieties, established on a notably tree-covered landscape.

The diversity of agricultural species was similar to what
might have been imagined in the whole Iberian south from the
tenth century onwards, until the Castilian feudalism inherited
from the Visigoths gradually put an end to the more privatized,
kitchen-garden agriculture of the Andalusian period. Through the Kitab
al Filaha, the agriculture treatise by Ibn al-Awamm -
certainly the most important and encyclopaedic of the medieval
writings of the European west the main features of this landscape
can be discovered. Arboreal crops dominated by olives, vines,
almond trees, carob trees, fig trees, peach trees, apricot trees,
apple trees, pear trees, medlar trees, quince trees, chestnut
trees, walnut trees, pistachio trees, hawthorn trees, date palms,
lemon trees, citron trees, sour orange trees, jujube trees,
nettle trees, mulberry trees and hazelnut trees, as well as
holm-oak, strawberry-tree and myrtle. Kitchen gardens with
lettuces, carrots, radishes, cabbages, cauliflowers, melons,
cucumbers, spinach, leeks, onions, aubergines, kidney beans,
cardoons, artichokes, purslane and numerous aromatic plants
(basil, cress, caraway, saffron, cumin, capers, mustard,
marjoram, fennel, melissa, lemon verbena, thyme...).

Fields of cereals and pulses sown with wheat, barley, rice,
millet, maize and spelt among the former; and broad beans, kidney
beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, vetch, lupine and fenugreek
among the latter. Sugar-cane crops on the coast of Almuñécar
and Vélez-Málaga; fibre plants such as flax, cotton (Asian) and
hemp; dye plants such as safflower, madder, henna, woad plant and
saffron; and tanning plants such as sumac. Wild species such as
esparto, osier and oil-palm were used; conchillas and silkworms
were reared by cultivating their host plants; numerous ornamental
species were planted in gardens and an enormous number of
medicinal herbs were used. This was the agricultural landscape
before 1492.

If we compare the agriculture of southern Spain under the
Catholic kings with the official agriculture in Castilian Spain
at the time of Alonso de Herrera (sixteenth century) as well as
with that of the Austrians (Gregorio de los Ríos), that of the
Enlightenment and Decline of the Empire (Lagasca, Rojas Clemente,
Claudio and Esteban Boutelou, Arias and Costa) and that of the
first half of the twentieth century (Dantin Cereceda), we can see
there has been an obvious loss of a number of crops. We should
therefore ask the following questions: Which were the
marginalized species? Which were the American species introduced
into Spain? How and which way did they arrive? What caused the
marginalization of Iberian crops? Was this marginalization a
consequence of the spread of the American species? What were the
mechanisms of substitution or marginalization?

Widely different species have lost much of their importance,
been marginalized or even completely forgotten. Some remain in
the wild state, growing in ditches and on the boundaries of
cultivation, as a testimony to their past agricultural use, and
they even behave as weeds of other crops. Others have disappeared
completely from Spanish agricultural flora. Here they are grouped
under different headings according to their utilization.

Horticultural species

This is perhaps the group with the largest number of
marginalized species, especially horticultural species which may
be called bitter. The species involved are mainly consumed as
greens (boiled, cooked in butter or oil or fresh in the form of
salads). Some current gastronomies in Europe (and also in America
because of the export of the crop and traditional consumption
patterns) even use them preferentially as a garnish for meat.
There are others which are very flavoursome and which are
difficult to separate from their categorization as spices or
aromatic plants. These include Amaranthaceae: Amaranthus
lividus (blite); Apiaceae: Foeniculum vulgare (fennel),
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip), Smyrnium olusatrum (alexanders
or alisander); Asteraceae: Taraxacum officinale (dandelion),
Silybum marianum (holy, milk thistle or lady's thistle),
Cichorium intybus (chicory, succory or witloop), Scolymus
maculatus (spotted golden thistle), Scolymus hispanicus
(Spanish salsify, golden thistle or Spanish oyster plant), Tragopogon
porrifolius (salsify or vegetable oyster), Scorzonera
hispanica (scorzonera or black salsify); Boraginaceae: Borago
officinalis (borage), Simphytum officinale (comfrey);
Brassicaceae: Eruca vesicaria (rocket, garden or salad
rocket), Nasturtium officinale (summer or green
watercress), Lepidium sativum (cress), Armoracia
rusticana (horse-radish); Polygonaceae: Rumex acetosa (sorrel)
and other species of the genus: Portulacaceae: Portulaca oleracea
(purslane); and Chenopodiaceae: Atriplex hortensis (orache),
Chenopodium album (goosefoot or fat-hen).

For example, the latter were cultivated on the peninsula
before American beans were known (Phaseolus spp., chiefly
P. vulgaris). These would be mainly the species Vigna
sinensis or perhaps al so Dolichos lablab, both
Phaseolaceae of the Old World known for many centuries in the
Mediterranean west, although cultivated especially in the
Hispano-Arabic period. To appreciate the neglect or
marginalization which these legumes have suffered as a
consequence of the introduction of American beans (kidney beans,
field beans and also green beans), it will be remembered that,
according to the text of Ibn al-Awamm, at least 12
"species" (cultivars) of them were grown in Al-Andalus
as a minimum, which bore names such as Marfilada, adivina,
jacintina, aura or bermeja, de picaza, alfahareña, romana,
etiópica, blanca, etc. This genetic biodiversity was accompanied
by a wide diversity in the forms of consumption: as a vegetable
(the pods, prepared with oil and vinegar), in soups together with
salted fish, as a flour made from the seeds boiled in water, and
as a puree prepared from this flour used to accompany other
dishes, also seasoned with spices.

This group should also include a substantial proportion of the
germplasm of other grain legumes, which are extensively used for
human consumption and which today are grown abundantly, but whose
infraspecific variability, at local variety or cultivar level,
has been considerably reduced during the last few centuries; for
example, Cicer arietinum (chickpea), Pisum sativum
(garden pea), Vicia faba (broad bean) and Lens
esculenta (lentil).

Cereals and other grains

We may mention the marginalization of Panicum miliaceum,
Setaria italica, Pennisetum glaucum (Pearl millet,
African or bulrush millet), spelt (Triticum spelta, T.
dicoccon) and to a lesser extent sorghum (Sorghum spp.)
among cereals, or the total neglect of other non-gramineous grain
species once used as a source of carbohydrates. This is the case
with bugloss (Anchusa officinalis or plantain (Plantago
spp.). Hemp, flax and sesame also figured among the grain
species that were known to the agronomists of past centuries.

Fruit-trees

Except for some local and very recent recovery, some species
that were once frequently cultivated have now almost completely
disappeared from cultivation on the peninsula. These are: citrus
medica (citron tree), Pistacia vera (pistachio tree),
Ziziphus lotus (lotus tree), Sorbus domestica (service
tree or sorb tree), Crataegus azarolus (azarole), Celtis
australis (hackberry or nettle tree) and Myrtus communis
(myrtle).

Other species, which were perhaps of more importance, are
gradually being reduced, put to other uses or grown in a more
marginal way, such as Ficus carica (part of whose
biodiversity has been lost in cultivation). Cydonia oblonga,
Cernatonia siliqua , some citrus fruits such as zamboa or
bergamot as well as local varieties of apple, pear, peach, etc.

Aromatic, perfume, dyestuff, colouring and tanning plants

Although some spices and aromatic plants such as saffron have
withstood the passing of the centuries, others have lost their
importance and have been partially or completely replaced by the
introduced American species (Capsicum spp., in particular)
or as a result of intensification of the international spices
market. This is the case, for example, with garden cress and some
mustards. Today, certain European and Mediterranean aromatic
plants are perhaps cultivated much more or used much more in
Latin American cooking than in Spanish cooking (coriander and
rosemary, for example). Of the dyestuff plants, the cultivation
of plants such as the woad plant (Isatis tinctoria), henna
(Lawsonia inermis), dyer's mignonette (Resedu lutea) has
been lost and a similar thing has occurred with tanning plants
such as sumac (Rhus coriaria).

American species began arriving in Europe with Columbus, thus
ushering in an irregular but continuous process in the transfer
of germplasm and ethnobotanical information relating to the use
of new American crops; this is still going on and is currently
even being stepped up. The causes, arrangements and places of
arrival as well as the nature of the species brought from America
to Spain during the first two centuries of trade are known
through the accounts of the same voyages made by Columbus and,
later, from the accounts by the chroniclers of the Indies (Fray
Bartolomé de las Casas. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo, Bernal
Díaz del Castillo, Bernardino de Sahagún, Alvar Núñez Cabeza
de Vaca, Jose de Acosta, the Incan Garcilaso de la Vega and
Bernabé Cobo), together with the narrations of others who did
not cross the Atlantic, such as Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Pedro
Mártir de Anglería and Andrés Bernáldez. The work of the
doctor and naturalist from Seville, Nicolas Monardes, along with
the plant catalogues in various herbaria and botanical gardens of
the time such as those of Castore Durante, Jacques Daleachampe,
John Gerard, Charles l'Ecluse (Clusius) and James Donn are also
basic reference documents. Finally, the enormous mass of
information contained in the Archivo general de Indias isa monumental source of direct, official information on the
transport of all kinds of goods - including plant germplasm
-between the New World and Spain We have consulted a small part
of the texts, although the 14 million documents still contain
numerous unpublished data on the subject.

In the first decade which followed the at-rival of Columbus on
the American coast. special arrangements applied to some extent
as regards the Spanish Crown's economic/commercial treatment of
its new colonies. In the edict issued to govern Columbus's second
crossing. there is clear evidence of the attempt to control
rigorously the number of people, animals, plants, minerals and
objects crossing the sea in either direction. Although this was
the initial spirit in 1493, two years later, responding to the
expectation which arose as a result of events, the Crown allowed
all its subjects to travel to the West Indies to settle, explore
or engage in trade, although always under very stringent and
certainly onerous conditions. Around 1501, the policy of the
Catholic kings changed again, with severer restrictions being
imposed on tree trade: no one could settle, discover or explore
in the new territories without royal approval. To put an end to
these waverings, the Casa de Contratación de las Indias was
established in 1503 with its headquarters in Seville: over the
next two centuries it was to exercise iron control over the
traffic of people and goods with America.

In spite of the initial theoretical motives of Columbus's
voyage, his descriptions and his admiration for the natural
beauty of the islands discovered, and in spire of the tact that
some contemporary historians cling to the interpretation that the
plant world was also a part of the interests and motivations of
the Spanish adventurers of the sixteenth century, we are more
inclined to accept the view that the conveyance of plants became
a very secondary objective compared with the feverish desire for
gold and other metals; Columbus himself was a victim of it during
his first voyage.

At the outset, what was the overall attitude of the Europeans
towards the vast ethnobotanical culture of the Amerindian peoples
and the ancestral agricultural tradition of many of their ethnic
groups? Surprise and curiosity, naturally, but also traces of
reticence and distrust which were even reflected in contempt for,
and the persecution of. some native cultures (the Huautli). From
Spain, the main foods and herbs which constituted the diet and
official medicine were sent on a massive scale. For example, when
in Mexico in 1524, Cortés asked Spain "that each ship
should carry a certain number of plants and should not sail
without them, because this will be very important for the
population and its perpetuation".

During the first decades of the sixteenth century , the sowing
of wheat was persistently attempted in the new lands. Juan
Garrido and Alonso Martín de Xerez, were the first to sow it
successfully in New Spain and Beatriz de Salcedo in Peru As early
as 1531, there were people specializing in this crop on American
territories, in spite of the many difficulties that cereal arming
encountered among the Indians. In view of the inability of the
colonies to become self-sufficient in wheat, it was decided that
western Andalusia should become the granary of the New World and
that colonists interested in the pursuit of metal should he fed
with Andalusian flour. However, Andalusia was not even able to
provide for its own needs. Famine raged and periods of high
mortality were recorded in Andalusia. Wheat was finally imported
from Sicily and Naples info Seville, whence it was taken to
America.

During this first half of the sixteenth century, the seeds of
many vegetables were also sent. The species most quoted in the
documents kept in the Archivo de Indias include: cabbage. turnip.
radish, borage, bottle gourd, Savoy cabbage, carrot, spinach,
aubergine. lettuce cucumber, cardoon. onions, spring onions,
cucumbers, garden cress, melon, purslane and celery. There were
also many spices and aromatic plants such as mustard, basil,
rosemary, lavender, fennel, rue, coriander, cumin, hempseed,
parsley, oregano and aniseed. These attempts at introducing
species which would finally end up neglected in the mother
country (borage, garden cress, purslane...) seems nothing less
than shocking. In 1520, Cortés informed Charles V that, at the
market of Tenochtitlán, onions, leeks, garlic, garden cress,
borage, sorrel, cardoons and golden thistle were already to be
seen. Some of these greens, such as spinach, beet and garden
cress, were subsequently to lose their importance but others,
such as the cardoon, cabbage, lettuce, radish, broad bean, turnip
and carrot, were the vegetables most eaten in Mexico City in
1526.

With this attitude and policy of imposing European
agriculture, crops and methods of consumption on America, the
process of incorporating local agricultural cultivation,
transporting plant species to Spain and assimilating the
ethnobotanical knowledge of the indigenous races took place in a
climate of indifference, randomness and disorganization. Spain
was to prove much more an instrument for extending Europe's
influence in the New World than a channel for American plant
germplasm to reach the Old Continent. Up to the mid-sixteenth
century, plant species reached Europe generally as a result of
private initiatives. It was an activity which began with the
first voyage of Columbus, transporting potatoes or sweet potatoes
(Ipomoea batatas) to ensure provisions for his crew during
the return journey. From then on, a long succession of plants
crossed the Atlantic and were unloaded in Spanish ports, chiefly
in Andalusia. There was a gradual flow of maize (Zea mays), beans
(Phaseolus vulgaris), gourds (Cucurbita spp.),
chili (Capsicum annuum) , upland cotton -trees (Gossypium
hirsutum), cassava (Manihot esculenta), tobacco
(Nicotiana tabacum and N. rustica) groundnut (Arachis
hypogaea), maguey (Agave americana), pirú or American
mastic (Schinus molle), pineapple (Ananas comosus), Peruvian
mastic (Bursera simaruba), jalap (Ipomoea purga), black
sapote (Diospyros digyna), sweet gum (Liquidambar
styraciflua), peachwood (Haematoxylon brasiletto), balsam
(Myroxylon balsamum), sea grape (Coccoloba
uvifera), Bumelia persimilis, star apple (Chrysophyllum
cainito), Indian cress, nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus), cocoa
(Theobroma cacao), marigold (Tagetes spp.), tomato (Lycopersicon
esculentum), guaiacum (Guaiacum sanctum), prickly pear
(Opuntia spp. and Nopalea cochenillifera) and
dorstenia (Dorstenia contrajerva), etc.

Details of the arrival of many of these plants will probably
never be known because of the excessive zeal of the Crown in
checking ships' cargoes. For this reason, the ports of Vigo,
Corunna, Santander, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malaga, Sanlúcar de
Barrameda and Cadiz were frequently used as an alternative to the
port of Seville where unloading was rigorously checked by
officials from the Casa de la Contratación In this way, many
goods were not recorded, including many of these plant species
which in principle did not seem to have a real commercial value.
Hence they were almost always planted and distributed in the
fields before being identified by scholars, so that their first
botanical or ethnobotanical descriptions on European soil were
very much later than their date of arrival on the continent.

The situation changed considerably after the publication in
1574 of Historia medicinal de las cosas que se trace de
nuestras Indias Occidentales by Nicolas Monardes, a doctor
from Seville, who drew attention to the potential of the new
medicinal herbs and their cultivation in Spain. His work was
distributed widely and was of decisive importance for other, more
rigorous and later works such as those of Dodoens, l'Obel and
l'Ecluse at the dawn of the seventeenth century. This is how
species such as the following came to be described: flor de
manita (Chiranthodendron pentadactylon), potato (Solanum
tuberosum), sassafras (Sassafras albidum), white cedar
or American arbor vitae (Thuja occidentalis), sunflower (Helianthus
annuus), thorn apple, Jimson or Jamestown weed (Datura
stramonium), physic nut, purging nut or pulza (Jatropha
curcas), sarsaparilla (Smilax spp.), avocado (Persea
americana), quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), Indian cane (Canna
indica), copal (Protium copal or Bursera spp.),
annato, arnatto or roucou (Bixa orellana), guava (Psidium
guajava), soapberry tree (Sapindus saponatia), soursop
(Annona muricata) and papaw (Carica papaya) etc.

During the seventeenth century this situation persisted while,
at the same time, the European upper class developed a certain
taste for the exotic, which was to the advantage of the
cultivation of many of the species arriving from America as
ornamental plants. After these plants had crossed the Atlantic,
the reasons for their use were forgotten in their area of origin,
and the ethnobotanical information relating to their properties
and applications was completely lost except for a certain
percentage of medicinal plants - and, although important species
for human consumption were involved, the primary and indeed
exclusive use for quite some time in the majority of cases was
ornamental. This phenomenon was so widespread that, out of 146
American species known in Europe at the end of the seventeenth
century, 44 were used in Spain as ornamental plants, while only
one was used as such on the New Continent (Tigridia pavonia, the
Aztec oceloxochitl or tiger flower). Much earlier, in Agricultura
de jardines written by Gregorio de los Rios between 1590
and 1591 and published in 1604, some 200 species used in the
gardens of Castile are mentioned and 16 of them are of American
origin. These include Phaseolus vulgaris Capsicum annuum,
Capsicum frutescens, Helianthus annuus, Lycopersicon esculentum and
others which, at the time, appeared to be only of interest as
ornamental plants.

Eighteenth century: the Enlightenment

The first encounter between the interests of the Crown and
those of the enlightened scholars came when the Bourbon dynasty
acceded to the throne. These new dynamics, which were absent
under the Austrians - except for the feeble support given by
Philip II to the Protomedicato of Francisco Hernandez -
encompassed natural history, and consequently botany, within the
eighteenth century conception. This concept recognized the need
to obtain more and better information on the planet's biological
and geological riches as a means of utilizing them more
profitably. There were also reasons of state for reappraising the
role of agriculture (which had ranked very low on the social
scale since the Catholic kings) and these led to a heightened
interest in the introduction of new crops and products into the
empire's commercial channels.

This profound change in thinking and political conception
began during the reigns of Philip V and Ferdinand VI and reached
its height with the reign of Charles III. Under this monarch, not
only was academic interest in the plant world encouraged,
beginning with the creation of botanical gardens for example, but
scientific expeditions to America were even organized under
orders to catalogue the biodiversity of the overseas colonies in
order to increase both resources and national prestige. Special
attention was to be given to medicinal plants and those capable
of certain particular uses, as in the case of dyestuff plants.
This is how hundreds of different species arrived in Spain in the
form of seed, live plants, herbarium specimens, identifiable
fragments, etc.

The only objection to this policy which can be pointed out
relates to drawbacks inherent in the centralism imposed by the
monarchical absolutism of the time. The material was inexorably
conveyed first to Madrid, where the Royal Botanical Garden played
a prominent role, whence the plants were then distributed
centrifugally. The Royal Gardens of Aranjuez were also to play a
particularly important role; here, American species such as Magnoliu
grandiflora. Liriodendron tulipifera, Acer saccharum, Acer
negundo, Robinia pseudoacacia, etc. are known to have
prospered in the second half of the eighteenth century. The long
period of transportation, together with the harsh winter climate
of the Castilian plateau, meant that most specimens ultimately
perished. The creation of acclimatization botanical gardens on
the coastal periphery of Iberia and the islands (Orotava,
Valencia, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, etc.) only partly remedied
these difficulties.

Nineteenth century

During this century, the unifying trends of the social,
political and scientific attitudes of the Enlightenment were
slower. The traditional difficulties affecting the free and rapid
propagation of thinking surfaced once again. Almost all natural
history research projects were suspended. Spain's relations with
America were limited to a continuous process of decolonization of
the old territories of the West Indies.

To assess the extent of transfer of American species to Spain,
the data provided by the Memoria sobre los productos de la
agricultura española compiled for the General Exhibition
held in Madrid in 1857, on the "mountain" of Príncipe
Pío may be used. The catalogue of products that the organizers
considered as having potentially constituted the exhibition lists
a total of 640 plant species of economic interest, of which 130
of American origin, which were typical of any place on the
Spanish mainland and the Balearic and Canary Islands. They were
basically food, industrial and forestry (timber) species. The
edible "roots" mentioned included potatoes (from Ciudad
Real, Corunna and Toledo), sweet potatoes (from Malaga, Murcia
and Valencia) and Jerusalem artichokes (from Madrid). Cereals
included maize (from Corunna, Oviedo, Santander, Barcelona.
Valencia and Murcia). The section on other flour grains included
quinoa (from Valencia and Zaragoza). Among vegetables were gourds
(from Murcia and Valencia), peppers and pimentos (from Murcia,
Logroño and Madrid), tomatoes (from Murcia), Chile strawberries
(from Madrid), tropical pineapples (from Barcelona) and Indian
cress (from Madrid). Legumes included beans (specifically quoted
as Phaseolus vulgaris from Barcelona, Valencia,
Murcia, Oviedo. Avila, Segovia and Madrid) and groundnuts (from
Valencia). Fruit-trees included the cherimoya (from Cadiz, Malaga
and Valencia), pecan and hickory (from Barcelona, Cadiz, Madrid
and Valencia), sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera) (from Malaga)
and avocado (from Valencia). Among industrial plants, indigo from
the Canary Islands was mentioned. The presence of some species
now lost and the absence of other American species that are now
better known in Spanish agriculture, such as sunflower, upland or
hairy cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) papaya, babaco, jojoba,
etc., may be noted.

Current trends

During and especially towards the end of the twentieth
century, we can observe a massive cosmopolitization of genetic
resources, resulting not only from the more rapid flow of genes
and information (the elimination of natural frontiers, the
technological revolution and the intensification of
communications) but also from the aggressive economic policies
applied in the agricultural sector. Species and varieties are
being introduced and replaced at a rapid rate? causing enormous
variations in the agricultural landscape, products and forms of
consumption. A frantic search for greater productivity has led to
the so-called green revolution, a model of agriculture which, to
a great extent. has made it necessary to backtrack as regards
agricultural policies. The risks of an extreme oversimplification
of the genotypes in production have jeopardized the conservation
of the planet's agricultural biodiversity and caused an
irreversible loss of genes, traditions of use and consumption,
resulting in excessive homogenization of the forms of life and
survival of humanity. At the end of the century, an effort is now
being made to correct these extremes: unfortunately. however, a
race to appropriate a new element of power and control -the
planet's plant genetic resources - is also beginning.

In recent times, important substitutions have occurred in
Spanish agriculture through the invasion of American species and
varieties. An example of this is the pine strawberry (Fragaria
x ananassa) replacing the European or wild strawberry (Fragaria
vesca), which used to grow wild in the deciduous forests of
Spain. Cultivation of sunflowers has considerably reduced the
olive growing area. Some models of Mediterranean agriculture have
been replaced by distinctly American patterns. For example, on
the coast of Granada and Malaga, the agricultural landscape of
carobs, figs, vines (for raisins) and olives has given way to
avocados, cherimoyas and, more recently, trials have been carried
out with papaw and babaco. Horticulture under plastic in that
same region, which has almost completely eliminated sugar cane,
produces essentially American species: tomatoes, pimientos,
gourds, beans and groundnuts. Extra early potatoes and sweet
potatoes appear outside at the end of autumn. Even the
traditional varieties of vine have had to be grafted on to
American rootstock that is resist ant to phylloxera. The degree
of "Americanization" of Spanish agriculture is clear:
the whole of traditional Spanish gastronomy is governed by
American plants: the Asturian fabada, potatoes in picón sauce
from the Canaries, Rioja peppers, Andalusian gazpacho or the
Catalan escalibada, to mention just a few dishes, require the
plant genes of the New World.

Before drawing up an overall assessment or conclusive opinion
on the role of American flora as protagonist in the partial or
total displacement of certain crops, we need to recall the origin
of the agricultural biodiversity of the pre-Columbian Iberian
territories and the historical events for which they provided the
setting during the first decades of Spanish colonization in
America.

While Spanish settlers imposed a specific model of agriculture
in the New World, attempted to introduce European crops and
scorned many of the species used by the Amerindian ethnic groups
or caused their marginalization, a persecution and
marginalization of the Andalusian farming culture also occurred
on the Iberian Peninsula. The final capture of the Kingdom of
Granada by the Castilian armies of the Catholic kings, the
expulsion of the Jews and Moors later, the persecution of the
Hispano-Arabic culture including the burning of libraries -
caused a sudden change in the agricultural structure of many of
the Iberian territories, especially in the south. Clear evidence
of this retrogression may be seen by comparing the richness - the
species mentioned. authors referred to and even concepts - of the
work of Ibn al-Awamm (Abu Zacaría) with that of Alonso de
Herrera, the priest who, more than 350 years after the Sevillian
Arab (twelfth century), was commissioned by Cardinal Cisneros to
write a treatise on agriculture in the first decade of the
sixteenth century, in view of the "absence of treatises on
this subject". Only one-third of the species quoted by Ibn
al-Awamm are mentioned by Alonso de Herrera. It should be noted
in some cases that rather than "neglect" we may talk of
"persecution", as in the case of certain bitter or
aromatic vegetables in which the puritan citizens of imperial
Spain found aphrodisiac, or simply stimulating, effects. This
occurred, for example, with rocket (Eruca saliva)
and even insinuations concerning garlic can be read in the work
of Alonso de Herrera.

The repercussions of the introduction of American flora became
apparent gradually, at first with a considerable inertia lasting
at least one or two centuries, and became evident only in very
recent times. Patterns of competition, substitution or
marginalization assumed various forms.

Substitution is more or less total between crops of identical
or equivalent use, that is to say between species which could be
termed ethnovicarious: for example, Vigna sinensis replaced
by Phaseolus vulgaris (kidney bean); Lagenaria
siceraria (calabash or bottle gourd) replaced by Cucurbita
spp. (particularly by Cucurbita pepo); Fragaria vesca (European
or wild strawberry) replaced by Fragaria x ananassa (pine
strawberry); Gossypium herbaceum (levant cotton) replaced
by Gossypium hirsutum (upland cotton).

The substitution which took place in a similar way but which
resulted in only partial elimination, eventually made the two
crops sympatric: this happened with Olea europaea (the
olive), whose cultivation area was reduced by that of Helianthus
annuus (sunflower); Panicum miliaceum, Setaria italica,
Pennisetum glaucum (pearl, African or bulrush millet) and to
a lesser extent Sorghum spp., which were replaced by Zea
mays (maize); and Juglans regia (English walnut)
replaced by Juglans nigra (black walnut) and Carya
illinoensis (pecan).

In other cases, replacement was not exactly equivalent as
regards the yield obtained, even though it involved similar
crops. This occurred, for example, with root or tuber species
grown in Europe before 1492, such as salsify, parsnip, alexanders
or horse-radish, which virtually disappeared in the face of the
sweet potato, Jerusalem artichoke and especially the potato -
which were incomparably richer and more productive as far as
carbohydrates were concerned -and even though other plants of the
same group of Andean origin did not manage to become established
(mace, oca, ullucu, mashwa, etc.). In this battle, there was one
Mediterranean species which fared well: the carrot.

We may also talk of substitution and marginalization among
ornamental species: American cypresses vis-á-vis Cupressus
sempervirens; Bougainvillea spp. vis-á-vis jasmine,
ivy and honeysuckle; hybrids between American and Mediterranean
species of the genera Populus and Platanus vis-á-vis
the European poplars; and oriental planes, marigolds and gerbera vis-á-vis
cineraria and chrysanthemums, etc. The examples in this
connection are countless.

There are other cases of more indirect action: chilies partly
displaced a series of condiments consisting of cultivated
aromatic herbs (garden cress, rocket, horse-radish, rue,
coriander and dill) and partly caused a reduction in the
consumption of other imported species, such as clove and pepper.

Almost complete substitutions occurred in the agrosystem. This
is the case with the dryland arboreal crops on the Mediterranean
coast (almond, olive, carob, vine, fig and pistachio) replaced by
the American subtropical crops under limited irrigation (avocado
and cherimoya) or by cultivation of early crops under plastic
with basically American species (tomato, pepper, gourd and bean)
alternating with the sweet potato or early potato.

Another form of marginalization, or rather of even more
indirect competition, was that caused by the intentional or
spontaneous introduction, and subsequent transition to the wild
state, of species such as the century plant or agave (Agave americana)
or the prickly pear. Their use as quickset hedges displaced
other local species of trees, bushes and border shrubs, some of
which were used as aromatic plants, medicinal plants and as a
source of raw material for craftsmanship. Competition even
extended to spontaneous flora, endangering the survival of local
endemic species (cf. Opuntia sp. on the Canary coast). Nicotiana
glauca also had similar effects in some areas of the
Mediterranean coast. We can see that, in other regions of the
world, American flora has reached the point where it has almost
completely replaced local flora, as in the case of Psidium
cattleianum and Syzygium jambos on the Mascarene
archipelago.

To complete this survey of the mechanisms of competition of
American flora with Spanish crops, we cannot overlook the
competition from herbs introduced into European agricultural
systems. Many of these species arrived accidentally and early
attempts were made to cultivate a few of them, but they
subsequently reverted to the wild state. The most harmful species
of American origin in Spanish agriculture are Amaranthus
retroflexus, A. albus, A. blitoides, Conyza canadensis and C.bonariensis. Other locally important species may be Euphorbia
nutans, Eclipta prostrata, Phytolacca americana, Xanthium
spinosum Amaranthus cruentus, A. muricatus Oxalis latifolia and
Paspalum paspaloides.